Translator: Giulia Cencetti Reviewer: Didar Omar
Italy is a democratic Republic founded on labour.
This is Article one of our Constitution.
In Article 4 it is stressed that work is a right and a duty.
But work can also be a pleasure.
[WORK CAN BE PLEASURE]
If we started to consider work a pleasure, so many things would change.
It would change the way you look for work, you do a job, you create a job.
It would change the way we imagine our leaders, colleagues, places.
It is always possible to enjoy working, to be happy while working
And is possible for anyone who wishes to do so.
It’s about knowing yourself and to believe in ourselves.
To know who we are, what we are able to do, what we like to do.
Get ready.
Actively seek a job or create one. And then make a difference,
[PEOPLE MAKE A DIFFERENCE]
regardless you are entrepreneurs, free professionals, employees.
Every day you have to deal with other people and you can choose
whether to be kind or not to be.
The possible effort, if effort must be, it is the same.
But the benefits are unmatched, and there are so many.
But I’ll only mention three of them.
The first, perhaps the most obvious, is that being kind really helps others.
It means recognising others and being recognised in the work field.
Decreases burnout, absenteeism, and increases well-being.
The second is that practice kindness It makes everyone’s life better.
Let me give you a small example how we applied it in the company where I work.
There’s a group of colleagues, a random team that shares only an Office,
who meet in working hours or outside, and designs ideas,
activities that benefit everyone.
Well, in December they invented the calendar of kindness 2022.
For each month of the year there is a suggestion of a kind action to do.
For example, leave a coffee for those who will come after you to the coffee-maker.
Or leave a positive message on a colleague’s desk.
The third benefit is that pay compliments makes us much happier than receiving them
because it helps us focus on others.
And this benefits not only the affected person, but also someone new.
Because if I do a kindness to A, A will naturally be more inclined to do so
a B, and B to C and so on.
And this generates a true culture of generosity and kindness within a company.
Last year, the Cor et Amor association
named me the first entrepreneuse of kindness in Italy. Wow.
I wondered why and I believe it is due to my kind leadership style.
I have a natural tendency to smile, but I received a great example from my family.
And many other example in the companies where I had the good fortune of working.
I lived directly on my skin of the examples of kind leadership
and it came naturally to me to practice them.
The good thing is that over the years we built respectful relationships
and really strong friendships, but we made even high figures.
That’s because kindness in the company also increases productivity,
it also brings results in cheaper ways.
So, if that’s not for a real interest towards kindness, do it for numbers.
Aesop already said it in ancient Greece:
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
I told you, I was named the first entrepreneuse of kindness as a woman.
And Guido Stratta, Personnel Manager of the Enel group, the first entrepreneur.
But there is a difference between kind entrepreneuse and kind entrepreneur?
Human beings are composed by 23 pairs of chromosomes.
Men and women differ only for the 23rd pair.
The men are XY, women are XX, and the rest is identical.
These are male characteristics and female characteristics that we all have.
Studies tell us that male characters are associated with values
such as competition, the ability to be alone on top,
aware that the leader is often alone.
A very strong willpower, very intense to achieve a goal.
He’s a result-oriented leader.
While the female characteristics are associated with values such as:
increased sensitivity, intelligence, more developed emotional intelligence,
intuition, empathy and be useful is a relationship-oriented leadership.
But these are male characters and female characters, not gender.
If I say:
Fair sex. [FAIR SEX FEMALE]
Who do you associate this with?
Women.
What about weak sex?
Women. [WEAK SEX FEMALE]
Do you remember the syllogism?
If A equals B, and B equals C, So A equals C?
Let’s stretch it.
Fair sex.
Weak sex.
Fair sex, weak sex.
No.
No, kindness is a force. It is an assertive force that doesn’t need violence
and aggression to make its case.
It is the ability to recognize their own mistakes and to learn from them.
And so, as a refrain says today very much in vogue, practice random kindness
and meaningless acts of beauty.
Practice kindness at random and meaningless acts of beauty.
But to get back to character, to the characteristics.
Gentlewomen, fair sex, yes: kindness is feminine.
In 1992 Roberto Vecchioni I want a woman.
I want a woman in a skirt, you take the one with the brain,
the one who makes career, the one with penis that isn’t there in the evening
And in the 90s the model of leadership was a male model,
so even the rare women at the top of the organization were pointed out
like those who wear trousers to be a little more practical than Vecchioni.
Almost thirty years after Silvia Zanella in the book “Il futuro del lavoro è donna”
tells us that in the world of work are less and less required
male characteristics and more and more female ones.
But remember the chromosomes.
It’s about human beings, not about men and women.
We must train more and more
empathy.
Care, attention, enthusiasm, kindness.
Kindness means taking care. Care of ourselves,
care of the environment, care of the places where we work and community
where we live.
Every morning each of you looks to the mirror to put make-up on, to shave,
to brush your teeth or simply to wish you a good day.
Every morning you do this exercise.
At the same time, lift the corners of your mouth and smile.
[SMILE] (Cheers)
Thank you.